Family Concert: Tell Stories with the Bomba Drums

Tags for: Family Concert: Tell Stories with the Bomba Drums
  • Performance
Saturday, April 12, 2025, 12:00–1:00 p.m.
Location: Community Arts Center
Free; No Ticket Required
a person holding a flag and a person holding a flag

Photo © Matvey Zabbi

About The Event

Join us at the CMA’s Community Arts Center for a free family-friendly performance led by Dr. Raquel M. Ortiz entitled “Tell Stories with the Bomba Drums,” where everyone is invited to drum, sing, and dance to yubá, cuembé, sicá, and leró Afro–Puerto Rican bomba beats. This bilingual concert is inspired by Dr. Ortiz’s book When Julia Danced Bomba (Arte Público Press, 2019), in which Julia has to dance a solo at a bombazo and she’s super nervous. Will she be able to listen to and feel the bomba beat?

Prior to the concert, families are encouraged to participate in the CAC’s art-making activity to create and decorate small drums that can be used during the performance.

Dr. Ortiz, an Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker, is a social anthropologist, educator, storyteller, playwright, performer, poet, composer, editor, illustrator, and author of children’s books and songs. Her bilingual stories about Afro-Caribbean and Latinx culture invite children and adults to join in on adventures, featuring children as the protagonists so that they see and celebrate their creativity and valor. More information about Dr. Ortiz can be found on her website.

Video URL

The views expressed by performers during this event are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Sponsors

The 2024–25 Performing Arts Series is sponsored by the Musart Society. This program is made possible in part by the Ernest L. and Louise M. Gartner Fund, the P. J. McMyler Musical Endowment Fund, and the Anton and Rose Zverina Music Fund.

The Cleveland Museum of Art is funded in part by residents of Cuyahoga County through a public grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture.

Performing arts programs are supported in part by the Ohio Arts Council, which receives support from the State of Ohio and the National Endowment for the Arts.